I didn't want you to worry
by pixierock88
Summary: COMPLETED! Joan and Adam have some friends over for dinner, but it all goes terribly when Adam collapses and has to be rushed to the hospital. Trust me, it's a lot less depressing then it sounds. Lots of JA fluff and etc. Please R&R!
1. Intro

I Didn't Want You To Worry

Summary: Joan and Adam have some friends over for dinner, but it all goes terribly when Adam collapses and has to be rushed to the hospital.

There is some major Joan/Adam fluff in this story.. just a pre warning...

Author's note: I got the idea for this story a while ago and I just now finally got around to writing it. This is the one of many "short" stories (they really aren't all that short by the way) that I've started to write lately. They're all from future parts of my story "Just fall in love again". The main story can be found here - .

(To anyone who's been wondering where new additions to this story are. I sort of can't find the notebook that the story's written in. Once I do, I'll start to write more of it up.)

This story takes place the February after Joan and Adam get married. (They got married in the July after my other story is currently taking place)

I partly got inspiration from Depudor's Joan/Adam fanfic. (I love your story by the way! It's saved on my computer and I read it all the time.) I incorporated certain part of her story. I just edited and formatted it so that it would fit into mine. I give complete credit to Depudor and I hope that no infringement was taken on her part or anyone else's, for that matter.

To anyone who commented on my main story, thank you so very much and I really hope that you continue to do so and that you do so to this story! (It would be much appreciated!)

To TeeJay: If you've ever wondered whom the Kimberly is who donates her videos to that would be me! And that's also me that has donated the fanart as well, which reminds me, I need to send Nicole all of the new art that's on my computer desktop. There's no reason why it should sit and rot there!

I hope that you like my story and comment. If there are any errors in it please send me an email at . Thank you and enjoy!


	2. Chapter 1

- 1 -

"Hey, how about we invite Anna, Matt, Tara and Chris over for dinner?" I say from the bathroom, as I get dressed. "When?" Adam asks from the bedroom. I think for a moment. "Tonight?" I suggest. I can hear hesitation in my husband's voice. "Jane, do you think you should this soon?" I sigh. "Adam, I'm not sick anymore. I'm barely sniffling and I'm not really contagious anymore. I really really want to have a date night with our friends. Come on Adam! It'll be good for us to do this. We haven't done anything fun as a couple for a while." I can just tell Adam's trying to find ways to get out of this. He seems to have finally given in as he replies "Okay, Jane if it's what you want."

I open the bathroom door and beam up at him. "Really?" I ask, excited. "Unchallenged Jane." Adam says. I jump up into his arms to hug him and I give him a big kiss. Adam kisses me back and drops his arms to my hipbone. "If you're happy, then I'm happy yo." I give him a big kiss on the cheek and say "Thank you." Adam smiles at me. "Only for you, my love." He says. I pull myself out of his grasp and walk out to the living room to put on my burgundy sketchers. Adam grabs our coats and reaches for my hand, which I happily give as we close our apartment door and head for the stairs to go down to street level.

"We're doing what tonight?" Tara asks, walking down the hallway after me. "Dinner. You, Chris, Anna, Matt, Adam and I at our place." I reply. "Who's cooking?" Tara asks. "Adam and I." "No take-out?" Tara asks surprised and I roll my eyes at her. "What?" She asks, laughing. "We don't just eat take-out Tar." I say. Tara laughs. "I've seen your trash can at home. It's filled with take-out containers." I smack her teasingly on the shoulder and go into my office.

My phone rings a moment later and I reach to pick it up. "Hello?" I say into the speaker as I click at my computer mouse and return to writing up my Downtown article. "Hey Jane." I could almost melt into the phone when I heard Adam's voice. It's just that amazing nowadays. "What's up?" I manage to say. I could never before have imagined that hearing the word "Hey" could make me go weak in the knees, but I guess it can. "Not too much. I just wanted to hear your voice I guess." Adam replies. I smile because he is so **obvious **and I don't mind either. "Oh." I say trying to sound disappointed that he didn't want more. "What are you doing?" He asks. I sift through papers on my desk as I reply "I'm trying to write up an article on Downtown." "Trying?" I can hear the smile in Adam's voice. "Yeah, trying." I reply. "Cool yo." He says. "I can't do lunch today if that's what you're really trying to ask." I say, getting to the point. "Cha, I guess. But, can't I just call to hear my wife's voice?"

I'm in pure giddyness at the moment. " Sure, I guess." I reply. "Unchallenged. I'll talk to you later Jane. I love you." I smile at those words that I love to hear. "I love you too. Bye." I say.

I bite my lip as I hang up the phone. I have a mountain of work to deal with and I don't want to! I let out a huge sigh of frustration and I must have been pretty loud, because Tara comes out of her own office and comes into mine to see what's wrong. She just gives me a weird look. "It's just I have a lot of work to deal with." I say. Tara raises her eyebrows and walks back into her office.

"Stop acting like such a drama queen and get back to work." Clare, one of my co-workers says, smiling. I put on a pout. "Fine." I say, all dramatically. Clare laughs. "Go!" She says, trying to sound serious. I roll my eyes and turn back to my computer screen. I bring Microsoft Word onto the screen and start to type. My phone rings and the little button that says, "front desk" is glowing. "Yes?" I ask. "Iris is on call waiting for you." One of the receptionists down at the front desk says. "Thank you." I say as she patches Iris through.

"Hello?" "Hi Joan." Iris says. "Hey Iris. What's up?" I can tell that Iris is shrugging. "Not too much. I was wondering if it would be all right if I bring the photographs from our interview with Downtown over for you to see in say, 45 minutes? I just finished developing them about an hour or so ago." "Sure. Yeah, that would be great. I'm excited about seeing them, so yeah. That'll be great." I reply. "Cool. See you then Joan." Iris says before she hangs up.

About 45 minutes later, there's a knock at my door. "Come in." I say looking up from my computer screen. Iris opens my door all the way and smiles at me. She shows me a manila envelope that says, "D.T shoot" on the front. "Cool." I say, taking it from her outstretched hand. I open the latch on the back of the envelope and lift the paper flap and take the pile of photographs out and put them on my desk.

The one on top is of all 5 of them. Alex Zimmer (Lead Guitar and Vocals) standing behind his wife Lucy (Bass and vocals) with his arms wrapped around her, Chelsea Able-Fisher (Keyboards, Piano and vocals) standing beside them leaning her arm on her best friend Lucy's shoulder, Sierra Eden (Guitar and vocals) standing beside Alex and Mitch Amsburry (Drums and vocals) standing next to Sierra holding one of his drumsticks in the air.

The next one was of Chelsea and Lucy sitting on benches facing each other. Lucy's wavy red hair is falling in her face while she is laughing at an inside joke Chelsea had just told her.

The next one is of the 3 girls with Sierra in the center and Lucy and Chelsea grinning like idiots. Sierra's long brown ringlets shinned and Chelsea's Lilac eyes were filled with so much laughter.

The next one was of the 5 of them looking all serious and trying to not laugh in the meantime.

The next one was of Mitch and Chelsea standing at Chelsea's keyboards. Chelsea looked all casual wearing a light blue ski hat that let her long blonde hair show.

The next one was of Lucy and Alex with their arms wrapped around each other, gazing into each other's eyes all romantically.

The next one was Sierra sitting at a desk, looking into the mirror that the desk was placed in front of. Sierra was wearing a v-necked black shirt and black lounge pants and her hair was really wavy. Iris had taken the picture so you could see both the real Sierra and her reflection.

The next one was of Sierra and Alex (the founding members) acting stupid and trying to irate each other.

The final one was of the 5 of them looking very relaxed on a couch.

"Iris, these are great. I love them all." I say, looking back up at Iris. Iris smiles at me, proud of her work. "Thank you." She says. "Which one do you want for the cover?" I glance through them again quickly.

"I like this one for the cover." I reply, choosing the first one of them all standing. Iris looked at it for a moment, then replies "Okay", agreeing with me.

"And this one for the full page one at the beginning of the article." I say, choosing the one of the 5 of them relaxed on the couch. And I want the rest of them in this order." I say as I look through the pictures and put them all in a pile on top of the envelope.

Iris nods her head and replies "Okay, cool. That sounds good. I'll leave them here with you then?" I look up at her. "Sure." I reply.

Iris puts the pictures back in the envelope and hands it to me. I bit my lip and take in a breath, then look at her again.

"Did you love him?" I ask. Iris closes her eyes, and then looks at me, knowing exactly who "Him" was. "Almost. But, I never would have been you." "Why?" I ask. Iris sort of snorts and replies "Joan, there was no use ever trying to compete. It was always you. You've always been the one he's wanted." I look at her again and swallow. "What do you mean?" "There's like this huge statue of you in his heart. We can look, but if we ever try to touch it, we get a st load of crap about it. I'm sure Jennifer and Bonnie felt the same way." Iris stops when she sees me stiffly cringe.

"What?" She asks. "It's just still hard for me to hear her name. I'm sorry, go on." I say. Iris smiles faintly, then starts again.

"There are like these flying monkeys circling around your statue. They look like a creepy mix between Adam and those monkeys that you would see on TV that would dance around and beg for money. If you tried to touch the statue, they'd start to scream and come down and start to hit you. Once they'd thought you'd learned your lesson, they'd happily go back up and circle 'round you again. The statue of you is huge and there's barely enough room to walk around you." She finishes as she starts to laugh. I'm laughing pretty hard at this point.

"You'll have to show me a drawing of it sometime." I say. Iris smiles then replies "Sure." while she's still laughing. She stands and starts to walk towards the door.

"Where are you going?" I ask. "I've got to get back to work. There's a lot to do today without Adam being there. Where is he by the way?" I grin, and then reply "He's getting stuff for tonight." Iris raises her eyebrows and asks, "What's tonight?" "A dinner date with Anna, Matt, Tara and Chris." I reply. "Cool." Iris says. "Yeah." I say. "I'll see you later Joan." Iris says, attempting to walk to the door again. "Okay. Bye Iris." I say. Iris smiles and says "Bye." as she walks out the door.

There's a knock on my door a while later and without looking up I say, "Come in." "Hey." I hear Adam say as he comes in. I look up at him wondering why he's there. "What are you doing here?" I ask. Adam raises his eyebrows. "Gees, you sure do seem happy to see me." "That's not it Adam, I am. But why are you here so early?" Adam sits down in one of the chairs in front of my desk and reaches for one of my pens and starts to flip it around his fingers. "What do you mean early? It's almost 5:30." Not believing him, I glance down at my computer's clock. It reads 5:27. "Oh wow, it was like early when I last looked." I say, with a slight chuckle. Adam lets out a slight laugh. "I hope this night's great, 'cause today was crazy. I got everything at the Grocery store, I got the flowers you wanted, chocolate cheesecake, candles and the wine." "Awesome." I say, as I turn off my computer.

"Yeah, so you ready?" Adam says. I smiled slightly up at him as I reply "Yeah." Adam nods as we walk out of my office. "See you later!" Tara calls from her office. "Bye!" I say. Tara smiles, then stands and walks to her door. "What time?" She asks. Adam shrugs and looks at me. "7:00?" I suggest. I look back at Tara. "Sure, we'll see you then I guess." Tara says, agreeing. I smile at her, and then turn towards the elevator.


	3. Chapter 2

- 2 -

"Well, what do you think?" I ask steeping back from the full-length mirror in our bedroom. Adam doesn't reply so I turn to look at him. He's just staring at me and I ask him the question again. Adam shakes his head slightly and blinks a couple times. "You look.. amazing Jane." I smile, then glance back at the mirror at my blue scoop necked sweater, black pants and low riding golden belt. Adam sneaks a look at my reflection again, and then heads out to the kitchen to check on the food.

I adjust the belt a little bit, and then run my fingers through my freshly waved hair. I head out to the living room as I hear a knock at the door. I cross the short length of the living room and open it. "Hey." Anna says, smiling. "Hi, come on in." I say, opening the door wider to let the 4 of them in.

"Your place looks more amazing every time I come." Anna comments, taking off her coat and going to look out the window at the streetlamp lit sidewalk. "Thank you." Adam replies.

Tara stands and looks at the mirror collage in the hallway as she always does. "This is such an odd mirror. Why do you keep it up?" She asks, like always. I smile and come to stand beside her. "Because, my husband made it. So don't you be dissing it." I say trying to sound offended.

The memory of being in Adam's shed the day I saw the collage for the first time still feels fresh in my mind. It was back in high school and Adam made it as his project for my mom's art class.

It's a good-sized brown trimmed mirror framed with metal shapes, pictures of Adam and I in high school and thick green-yellow wire trimmed ribbon.

I hadn't seen it for years, until Adam brought it out of storage when we moved in together. It's about as wide as the wall in the hallway, so we thought it would go perfect. Whatever's going on in the space between the corner of the couch and the edge of the kitchen counter is reflected in the mirror.

"Hey, Jane could you help me for a second?" Adam calls from the kitchen. He looks flushed all of a sudden and it's not from the heat of the stove. "Are you okay?" I ask touching his cheeks, which are slightly warmer then normal to the touch. "Yeah Jane, I'm fine. I just need you to help me." Adam replies. "Are you catching my cold or something?" I ask. "No." he answers. I look at him for a moment more, and then I take the pot of water that he's holding. I start to break the dry pasta in half.

The garlic Alfredo sauce in back is starting to heavily simmer at almost boiling point. Adam reaches over me to turn the heat down and I notice that he's sweating. "Are you sure you're okay?" I ask again. "Yes!" Adam replies, seeming almost mad that I asked. I blink a couple times and look at him again. "Sorry for being concerned about you." I turn back to my pasta as it starts to boil.

"Is there anything we can to do help?" Matt asks from the couch, a glass of white zinfandel in his hand. "No." I reply.

I'm very tempted to ask Adam if he's okay again, because he's starting to not look all that great.

All of a sudden, Adam drops the knife in his hand that he had been using to cut up the vegetables for the salad and collapses to the floor. I quickly catch him and Tara helps me lower him to the floor. "Someone! Quick call 911!" I yell as I start to panic. "Adam? Adam?" I say gently shaking him, feeling that I am about to lose it. Anna comes to sit beside me on the floor to see if she can help. "We've had a man collapse and we need an ambulance..." I distantly hear Chris say on the phone...


	4. Chapter 3

- 3 -

The ride to the hospital seemed way too long to me. Anna's in the back of the ambulance with me, keeping me company. I personally think she's there to make sure that I don't lose it anymore then I already have. The rest of them are riding in the police car behind us.

We get to the hospital and they take Adam out of the ambulance and inside. Anna and Tara both have to stop me from racing after the doctors when they take him into intensive care. The hospital won't let me go in and see him yet because they say that I am not related by blood. I'm his wife! I should have the same rights as blood relatives do.

Tara and Anna are watching me like hawks watching their pray in the waiting room. Tears just won't stop coming out of my eyes and I can't sit still. If anything happens to Adam, I really don't know what I'll do. He has become the center of my world so quickly and I won't go back to the way it was before.

"Where's Adam's dad and Joan's parents? You sure you kept up your half?" I hear Tara say to Anna. "I kept up my end of the deal. I called the Girardi's and they said they'd be here as soon as they could. I did my part." Anna snaps back quickly. "Well, don't blame me. I called his dad." Tara replies, defensively. I look up at them, my vision blurred with tears. "Stop it. Please don't do this now." I say in a low voice.

"Joan?" I look up quickly to see the source of that familiar voice. I quickly stand and run into my mother's arms. "It'll be alright sweetheart. It'll be alright." Mom says trying to comfort me and stop me from crying. I grab onto her blue sweater tightly, as if I'll never let go. I finally pull back a couple minutes later and look up at them.

My father looks tired, as if he hasn't gotten much sleep lately. My mother looks worried and it makes me start to cry again. It's my dad's turn to pull me close. I feel like a little girl again, running to the safety of her parents open arms. Strangely enough between hugging the both of them I do feel slightly better.

My eyes must be so blood shot, but I don't care. I sniffle and mom runs her fingers through my hair. "Do you want to tell us what happened?" dad asks. I look up to see Anna on the phone.

I look back at my parents and I suck in a deep breath and close my eyes, trying to regain my composure. Regaining it, I start to tell them everything that happened.

"Adam and I had Anna, Matt, Chris and Tara over for dinner and the evening started off great. It actually was a lot of fun at the beginning. Adam and I were making dinner and I realize that he looked flushed. I asked what was wrong and he wouldn't tell me. I kept asking over the next few minutes because he kept looking worse and he started to get mad at me for asking. A couple of minutes later, he dropped the knife he was using to cut up stuff and just collapsed. Chris called for an ambulance and we got here as soon as we could. They won't let me go see him because I'm not blood related. I'm so scared of losing him. I can't go through this again after going through everything with the accident back in August. I just can't do it again. I'm so scared that something's going to happen to him and I won't see him again."

I feel like I might cry again and I wipe at my eyes to try to stop myself. "It's going to be okay. He's going to be okay." mom says. Dad sets his jaw and says "They can't do that to you. You're his wife, you should have the same right as Carl does." I shrug my head and say, "I don't know."

I hear footsteps of someone approaching us and I look up to see Adam's dad. "How is he? What happened?" He asks me. "He collapsed earlier while we were making dinner. And for how he's doing, I don't know. They won't let me in to see him." I reply. "Where's a doctor in this place?" my dad asks as he stands and walks towards the receptionists at the front desk. "Are you alright?" Carl asks. I sigh. "I don't know. I really don't know." I reply.

A nurse comes down the hallway followed by my dad. Tara, Anna, Matt and Chris come to stand beside us. The nurse looks down at her clipboard, then back up at us.

"He has an infection. It was a pretty severe one that spread through his whole body. That's why he collapsed. It's not life threatening, luckily. With some antibiotics, he should be just fine." "That's why he was sweating and everything?" I ask. The nurse nods and says, "Yes, it is. It had already been in his system for a while and those were the final side effects." "Do you know where he caught it from?" Carl asks. The nurse shook her head. "No, we do not. Hopefully he will be out in a few days. The antibiotic treatment should continue for a short while afterwards, to make sure it is completely cleaned out of his system." "When can we see him?" I ask. "Anytime starting in around 5 minutes. You're his father, right?" The nurse looks at Carl. "Yes, I am.""Then dad, you can come with me first." "This is his wife. Can she go in now?" Carl asks, looking at me. The nurse looks at me, then back at Carl. "Family first, then she can. Okay now dad, follow me." The nurse says, signaling Carl to follow her down the hallway.

I watch them leave, now starting to get mad. "I just can't believe that they can do that." "They shouldn't be able to--" dad says, pausing. "I'm going to get some coffee. Would anyone like anything?" No one answered, so he walked off towards the cafeteria.

"I called Grace earlier. She said that Luke and her would be here tomorrow morning. They said they'd call Glynis and Friedman and let them know as well. Hopefully they can come too." Anna says, sitting down next to me. I look at her, grateful. "Thank you." I say. Anna smiles a thank you. "You okay now?" She asks. "I'm better now you could say. I'll be able to see him soon. My parents are here, Adam's dad's here. Grace and Luke will be here in the morning. I know what's wrong with him and I can kick his $$ later about not telling me." She looks at me. "Don't be too hard on him Joanie. He probably didn't know." "Yeah, well..." I say and Anna smiles faintly at me. "I'm going to call everyone and let them know how he is. They're going to try to be here in a little bit." "Okay." I say, as she turns to leave.

I glance up and swallow hard. I see a familiar black man in a doctor's uniform looking at a clipboard. Standing, I walk over to him.

"Why didn't you tell me he was sick?" I ask the man. "It wasn't my place to do so." Doctor God replies. "Why not?" "Because, it was Adam's place to tell you." "But, he didn't." I point out. "Maybe so." God says, as he starts to walk.

"So was Adam getting sick my punishment for not talking to you lately?" I ask as I follow him down the hallway. God turns to look at me." No. I'd never do that to you Joan. You know that." "So, what now?" I ask. "What do you mean?" God asks. "What do I do now?" "Forgive him Joan. Adam didn't do anything wrong, you shouldn't be mad at him." God replies. "I can't help it. We're married. I should know these things." I say, trying to make a point. "I'll see you around, Joan." God says, not answering me. I roll my eyes at him and he starts to walk faster then me. He waves back at me as he starts to turn down the hallway.

"Joan!" I hear my name being called down the hallway. I turn and see Zoe, Caitlyn and Iris back by the waiting area. I walk back towards them and hug Zoe first, then Iris and Catilyn. "Sorry we couldn't get here sooner." Caitlyn says. I reply, sighing, "It's okay." I say. "How is he?" Iris asks, concerned. "I haven't been able to go in and see him yet. But, when his dad's finished visiting with him, I will. I can't stand not seeing him. I miss him so much. That's so sad, right? I can't go 2 hours without seeing him." I smile faintly, then let out a small laugh-snort and shake my head. Zoe smiles and replies "No, that's not sad. I feel the same about Aldin." This statement makes me smile.

"What's wrong with him?" Caitlyn asks very directly, getting to the point. "He has an infection. It had spread through his system and him collapsing was the final side effect." "Oh my god. That's so, oh my god." Caitlyn says, blinking her eyes several times. "Yeah." I say, sitting down.

"You okay?" Iris asks, sitting down beside me. "Yeah, I'm better." I reply, taking in a deep breath. Zoe touches my hair and pushes it back from my face.

I look up to see Carl walking towards me. "You can go in and see him now Joan."

"He's awake?" I ask. Carl nods "yes" and I stand up. "I'll see you later Joanie." Zoe says. I take in another deep breath and give Zoe a small smile, and then I turn to walk down the hall to Adam's room.

I stop at his door and take a moment to find my composition. I take another deep breath, and then step into Adam's doorway. The bed's up slightly and he's sort of sitting up. He looks up and meets my gaze and gives me one of the warmest smiles I've seen since I got here.

"Hey." I say. "Jane, Hi." He says, looking me up and down and grinning. I set my jaw and look at him again. "Don't do that. You have no right to." I say, sitting down in the chair next to his bed. He turns to face me and looks at me slightly confused. "I have no right to do what?" "Act like you did nothing. You knew. You knew all along that you were sick and you didn't tell me." Adam closes his eyes, then after a moment opens them again. "Can we not do this now?" I set my jaw even more. "When would you like to do it?" I ask. "When we're home, when I'm better. Please, not now Jane." Adam replies. I relax my expression and take a deep breath. "Okay, fine. But I will give you some real st when we get home. Got it?" Adam snorted slightly. "Okay, fine." he answers.

Neither one of us speaks for a moment and Adam's the one to break the silence. "I've missed you so much the last couple hours. The sheets don't smell right. The ones at home smell like you. They smells like your skin. The ones here smell un-familiar and like over-washed cotton. They don't smell right," he says. I smile at him. "I missed you so much." I say.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier. I was just--" Adam pauses and looks like he's searching for the words. "You were looking forward to tonight and I didn't want to ruin it for you." I come to sit on the edge of Adam's bed. I lick my lips, and then look back at him. "You didn't ruin it. I hate that you'd ever think that." "I'm sorry." Adam says, reaching for my hand and he starts to trace the skin on my palm. "Never mind that right now." I sit up closer to him and reach forward to kiss him.

He kisses me with so much longing, that I start to forget that we're in a hospital. I open my mouth and touch his tongue. It tastes faintly of sleep and my taste buds start to go crazy for the taste of him. I can feel Adam pulling me in and I move slowly towards him. He pulls me down to sit beside him and I pull away a moment later, because I am giggling too hard to keep my mouth closed.

He smiles at me with lust in his eyes and he leans in for more of me. We're drinks each other in and I feel as if I might fall to the floor if the bed wasn't supporting me. I pull away and squeeze my eyes shut. Adam looks at me concerned and asks what's wrong. "It's just... I was so scared of losing you tonight. I was so scared of going through the thought of losing you again." "Jane..." Adam says looking at me again and I can tell that my eyes are starting to fill up with tears.

"Jane, what's wrong?" Adam asks again. "I just can't lose you. I love you Adam. You're my world and I don't know what I'd without you." Adam touches my cheek and dries the tears on them. He kisses me again, then pulls away and wraps his arms around me and hugs me tightly.

"Don't worry Jane, I'm not going anywhere. I want to grow old with you, I want to have children with you and I want to spend my life with you. I want to us to be one of those old couples sitting in the sunroom. I'm in this all of the way Jane and I wouldn't give us up for anything. I've lost you before and I'm not going to lose you again. Trust in that and trust in us. I love you Jane, I love you so much."

Tears just start to come pouring down my cheeks and they won't stop. Adam smiles at me and it looks like he might start to cry as well.

He gently pushes the hair off of my face and smiles at me. He reaches up to cup my face with his hands and he kisses me. I give him a quick peck and pull away.

"What?" Adam asks, sounding disappointed. "It's just --" I pause. "-- nothing. Don't worry Adam, it's nothing." I reply, finishing. He looks at me as if he doesn't believe me. "Can I lay down next to you all of the way?" I ask after a moment, because I am half lying down, half sitting up at the moment. Adam nods and scoots over to give me room beside him. Adam puts his fingers on the button and lowers the bed the rest of the way down, so that we are laying down flat.

I snuggle up against him, resting my head against his shoulder. I lay a hand gently on his stomach and rubbed softly, wishing to feel more intimate with him. I feel a tremor run through him. I look up at him and his lips are hovering right before mine. I move slightly towards him and opened my mouth and press it against his.

Adam grabs at me with both hands and mouth, and I can suddenly feel all of this heat rushing through me. I have to force myself to remember that we're in a hospital and that he's hooked up to all of these cords.

Adam seems to have forgotten all about them, because he keeps trying to pull me even closer to him. He wraps his arms around my back, and then drops them to my waist, where they flirt with the hem of my shirt. They then move to my back where they slip down over the top of my jeans where they entertain themselves with trying to get down the back of them. I pull away fast because I feel that this is way too heated for a hospital.

"What's with the rush there Rove? You need to get out of the hospital before any of that can happen." I say, teasingly trying to hide the fact that I want him so bad right now that I can barely stand it. Adam's panting heavily as he nods "yes". "You can have sex with me when you get out of here." I say, trying to be funny. Adam seems to have lost his sense of humor. He just nods again and it seems that his breathing has somewhat returned to normal.

"Do you mind staying with me until I fall asleep?" Adam asks a moment later. I reply with a smile and relax more into his embrace again, then put my hand on his chest again. "Jane, don't. Please. Not here. I may not be able to stop myself if you do." he says, moving my hand. I try to put on a pout, and then choose not to and I reply, "Okay, sure". Adam looks at me and says, "I love you Jane". I look into his dark eyes, and smile at him. "I love you too." I say. I snuggle into him again. Adam pulls me closer and he closes his eyes. I push his wavy brown hair off his face and trace his lips with my fingers.

Adam opens one eye and looks at me. He kisses my fingers and then playfully, gently bites at them. He looks up into my eyes again.

"What?" I say, with a slight laugh. "I'm trying to go to sleep Jane. Don't toy with me and get me all crazy about you, then to only tell me to chill out and get my sexed up about you hormones to settle down. Don't get me round up again. At least not tonight Jane." I laugh about what he's just said and Adam looks at me. "Please Jane." Adam says again, a slight pleading sound in his voice. I stop laughing and look at him. Adam leans forward to kiss my forehead; he then travels down to my lips, nipping at my lip playfully as he pulls away.

Adam attempts to close his eyes again, then he quickly opens one to glance over at me, then he closes them again and turns towards me. I reach for one of his arms and drape it around my waist. Adam opens his eyes again and sighs, looking at me.

"Jane, what are you doing?" Adam asks. "I want you to feel that even once you've gone to sleep that I'm still close." I reply. "Okay." Adam says, as he starts to message my sides and then closes his eyes again. He continues to gently rub my sides as his breathing slows down into an almost sleeping rhythm.

I yawn and it finally starts to sink in that it has been an extremely long, tiring night. I close my eyes for a moment to rest them and I suddenly feel very, very tired...


	5. Chapter 4

- 4 -

I must have fallen asleep sometime after I closed my eyes, because sometime before dawn someone gently taps on my shoulder. I roll over slightly and look up to see a nurse standing over me smiling faintly.

"Sorry to bother you Mrs. Rove, but you shouldn't still be in here." "I'm sorry. What time is it?" The nurse glances at her watch. "It 5:43 am." "Oh wow. I didn't mean to fall asleep." I say. "For that long." I add. The nurse smiles for real this time.

I gently move Adam's arm, which is still wrapped around my waist and sit up. I glance at him and I reach down to kiss his forehead. He looks so peacefully lying there and I hate the thought of him waking up, so I slowly move towards the edge of the bed and stand up.

I yawn and run my fingers through my hair. I walk to the doorway and glance back at Adam. He's still sleeping, so I turn to walk down the hallway and back towards the waiting area. My parents are still sitting out there as well as Anna and Tara, who are spread out on a few chairs looking like they were trying to sleep. Mom sees me and sits up quickly.

"Joan, where have you been all night?" she asks. "Good morning to you as well." I reply, smiling. "Sorry sweetheart. Good morning." She says. "To answer your question, I was with Adam." I say. Mom raises her eyebrow. "You were with Adam all of this time?" "Yes, I was. I went into talk to him, then we sort of kissed and we sort of kissed for a while. Then, I stayed with him until he fell asleep, then I sort of fell asleep too."

Mom looks like she's trying really hard not to laugh. "You sort of fell asleep?" I roll my eyes. "Yeah, I sort of fell asleep. So, where is everyone?" "Everyone was expecting you to come pretty much straight out and you didn't so everyone else left last night, except for them." She nods towards Anna and Tara. I smile, then reply "They're pretty awesome friends." "Yes they are." mom says, agreeing. "Everyone should be back in a little while." I nod and glance over at Anna, who by this time is starting to stir. She opens her eyes and sits up, rubbing at her eyes. She glances up and sees me.

"Joan, hey. You're back! Where were you?" I smile. "I was with Adam. We talked for a little while and then I stayed with him until he fell asleep." I reply. Anna nods and says, "Cool." "Are you hungry?" mom asks me. "Yeah, I'm starved." "Me too Mrs. Girardi. By the way, you look like st Joanie." Anna says. I let out a small laugh. "Gee thanks." I reply.

"Do you want to go home and freshen up, then come back to eat?" Anna asks. "Sure. When are Miss Anti and Stud Muffin going to be here?" I ask referring to Grace and Luke's pet names for each other. Anna laughs, then says "Last night Grace told me somewhere between 8 or 9." I nod.

"Who's Miss Anti and Stud Muffin?" mom asks. "I don't think you were there, but the morning after Adam's and my wedding we all heard Grace and Luke calling each other their pet names, I would guess forgetting where they were. We've teased them about it since." I reply. Mom laughs for a moment, and then shakes her head.

"Tell anyone who asks, we'll be back a little while. And if Adam wakes up and asks, tell him I'll be right back." I say. Mom smiles then says "Alright." I give her a smile, and then follow Anna down the hallway towards the elevator.

"Have you heard anything from Glynis and Friedman? Kevin and Lily?" I ask, as we step into the elevator. We ride it down to the ground floor and walk outside, towards the subway station. "Glynis and Friedman, no. I'm guess they'll just show up with Luke and Grace or something. Kevin called like half an hour ago because he said he couldn't sleep. They should be here later this morning. They have to drive down from Arcadia, so it should be a couple of hours I guess." "Cool." I reply then quickly add "Thanks Anna." She looks at smiles and me. "Don't worry, it was no problem."

We get on the train and ride the 10 stops down to Adam's and my apartment. In my rush last night, I forgot to grab my bag that had my keys in it. Luckily, the day that we moved in we put a spare key under the rug. I put the key in this slot and turn it to the left. The door opens easily and we go inside.

The food is still on the stove. The lights are still on. Everything is just how we left it last night.

"Go ahead and get ready Joanie. I'll clean up this... stuff." I give her a quick smile and head into the bedroom. I walk through the bedroom and into the master bathroom to take my shower.


	6. Chapter 5

- 5 -

About half an hour later I step out of the shower, walk towards the walk-in closet and dress in jeans, a long sleeved shirt and a dark pink hoodie. I pull on socks and put on my brown boots, and then walk out to the living room.

Anna's finishing cleaning off the stove when I walk in. "Hey." I say shoving my hands in my jean pockets. "Hey." She says as she turns the sink facet off. "You ready chica?" I let out a deep breath. "Yeah. I want to grab Adam's sketch pad, our I-pods and my laptop so I can work on stuff while I'm there." I reply. Anna shrugs. "Okay, sure. Go ahead."

I go into the living room to find the stuff and dig it out. "What's the story behind that thing again?" Anna asks. I look up at her. "What?" Anna points at the small sculpture on the coffee table. Smiling, I pick it up. It's the sculpture that Adam gave me the first time I was in his shed at his house back in Arcadia. It's a small sculpture and is made of wire, metal, copper and I think some plastic as well.

"It was a couple days after I'd first met Adam. Grace and him had come over to my house to work on our chem. group project and he left his book bag at my house accidentally when he left that night. I went over to his house the next day and he gave it to me." "He did it also as like his way of trying to say he liked you, right?" Anna asks. I put it back down on the table. "I don't know. I've never really, you know thought about it that way. Maybe he did." I reply.

I stand and walk over to the stove to stand beside Anna. "Got everything?" she asks. "Yeah." I reply nodding.

We turn off the lights and walk to the door, locking it. We walk to the subway station and ride the train down to the hospital. We go into the hospital's lobby and ride the elevator up to the 14th floor. We get off and I look up to see Luke sitting in one of the chairs in the waiting area.

"Luke?" I say. He looks up at me and gives me a huge smile. I practically run to my younger brother and I give him a huge hug. I pull away a moment later and ask him where his fiancée is. "She's in visiting with Adam. So, what happened?" I re-tell the story once again and by the end, Luke has a very "wow" look on his face. "Say something." I say. Luke blinks a couple times, and then looks at me again. "I don't know what to say Joan. How is he doing?" I shrug and reply, "He's doing better now. He's on antibiotics right now, so he's doing better."

"Anyways." I say trying to change the subject because talking about it almost non-stop for the past 12 hours has made me sick of it. "What do you want to know?" Luke asks. "I don't know. How's California. Grace? Her job? Your job? Science? Glynis and Friedman?" Luke shrugs slightly. "California's good, as always. Grace is doing great. She loves her job and seeing that she works for a free-style magazine she can talk about anything she wants to." "Bch about anything is more like it." I say, interrupting him. "Yeah." Luke says, trying to remember his train of thought again. "You were talking about Grace." I say, trying to help him. "Oh, right. She also now co-owns a skateboarding/surfing shop, so she's really enjoying work right now. My job's going pretty good. I'm busy, so I'm happy. Science as always is doing awesome! -- What?" Luke says, pausing seeing my expression at the sentence "Science as always is doing awesome!" "Nothing, it's just you make it sound so interesting and I don't remember it being as that. I just enjoyed it enough to pass with a descent grade." I say. Luke looks at me as if I'm crazy, but he continues again.

"Glynis and Friedman are doing good as of last time we talked. They should be here a little bit later." Luke says, finally finishing. "It all sounds great Stud Muffin." I say with a chuckle. Luke cringes at my comment. "Sorry, it's just so funny." I say.

"Have you heard from Kevin and Lily?" Luke asks, desperately trying to find a way to change the subject. "No, I haven't. Anna talked to them early this morning from what I've heard. She said that Kevin told her that they'll be here later." "Okay, coolie." Luke says.

"I'm going to go say hi to Grace." I say as I stand up. Luke nods and gives me a thumbs up. I shake my head as I head down the hallway to Adam's room. I look in and see Grace sitting in the chair beside Adam's bed, laughing hard about something. Grace sees me and smiles. "Hey Girardi." She says and Adam looks up to see me in the doorway and gives me a warm, sweet very "Adam" smile. I smile back at him, then at Grace.

"Hey Grace." I say as I cross the room and motion that I want to hug her. "No way dude." She says, stiffening up her body in the chair. It makes me smile to hear her say, "Dude". We've been out of high school for almost 5 years now and it still makes me smile to hear her call people "dude" after all of this time.

"Girardi... you're doing that weird spacey thing. Quit it!" She says and I look at her and roll my eyes. Seeing that she won't hug me, I reach down and give her a very awkward hug. It was awkward because she's pressed her body flat against the back of the chair and I can barely get my arms even partway around her. She pulls away quickly and says fake glaring at me "Dude, that was way too freaky." I smirk and say "I bet you let Luke wrap his arms all of the way around you." Adam gives Grace a look of pure disgust. She glances back and forth between Adam and I, uncomfortably. "Yeah, well that's different." She finally says. Adam's still looking at her totally grossed out. "Rove, stop it." She says.

Adam raises his eyebrows at her and says "okay". "Anyways." I say, helping her change the subject. Finding so much entertainment out of her right now, I immediately add "So, how are Stud Muffin and you doing?" This earns Grace another look of disgust from Adam. Grace glares at me and says, "fine", before getting up and out of her chair.

"What?" I say, my smirk reappearing. "This is just to creepy to disguise with you Girardi. I'll be out there." Grace says, walking towards the door. She walks out of the room.

"Well, that was fun." I say, my smirk slightly returning. I glance over to see that Adam's eyebrows are re-hiked up. "That's one way to say it," he says. I smile at him and sit down beside him on his bed.

"Hi." I say, kissing him. "Hi." Adam says kissing me back. He opens up his mouth and it's like he's trying to pull me into him. He kisses me again, stronger this time. Teeth against teeth, lips against lips, mouth against mouth and tongue against tongue.

Adam pulls me into his lap and I latch my arms around his neck. His tongue plows deeper into my mouth and I pull away, breathlessly.

I'm breathing really hard and Adam apologies. "It's okay." I say. "No, not really. I got a little eager there and I am sorry. It's just I've really missed you all morning." "Yeah? Me too."

"When did you leave? I woke up and you were gone." "Oh, a nurse came in at like almost 6 and told me to basically get out." I reply. Adam laughs. "I missed waking up without you being there. You've been there every morning for a while now and it was weird that you were gone, that's all." I look at him for a moment, and then give him a quick peck. "Aw, you're sweet. Are you hungry by the way? I've been starved all morning." "I'm hungry yo, so yeah." Adam replies. "I'll get you something that you can eat up here that won't get me shot at." I say, which earns a laugh from him. It seems like his sense of humor's starting to return.

"I'll be right back." I say. Adam leans his head towards me, asking for a kiss. I oblige and lean in for a quick peck, and then I stand up and walk to the door.


	7. Chapter 6

- 6 -

I walk back towards the waiting area and I see a brown haired man in his late twenties in a wheelchair and a brown haired women with chunky blonde highlights and a tattoo on her arm. I hear the women laugh at something the man has said and it makes me smiles as I approach them. "Hey." I casually say. Kevin's face light's up and he puts his arm around my waist and pulls me down into his lap. I'm laughing so hard by now and Kevin gives me a huge smile and says "hey" before he pulls me into a huge hug. I tightly wrap my arms around his neck. He pulls away and because I am so deep in his lap by now, Lily helps to pull me up. She laughs as she hugs me. I hug her back and I pull away a moment later.

"Hey kiddo. How are you?" Lily asks me. "Seeing everything that's happened over the past night, I'm pretty good over all. You?" Lily smiles and says "I'm pretty good. He makes me happy, so it's all good." Lily smiles at her husband, and then back up at me.

"You missed me Joan?" Kevin says, grinning at me. I lean down and kiss him on the cheek. "Yeah, I have. What has it been, Christmas since I last saw the 2 of you?" Lily looks at Kevin, hoping he'll help her remember. He doesn't, so she looks back at me. "Um, yeah I think that was it." She replies. I let out a small laugh. "I was going to grab Adam and I some breakfast in the Cafeteria. Interested?" I ask. "Yeah, I'm starving." Lily says. I nod and they follow me down the hall to the Cafeteria.

The Cafeteria is fairly empty and it smells of grease and coffee. I spot Grace and Luke sitting at a table towards the back.

I grab a tray and go up to the woman behind the counter. "I'll have 2 sides of scrambled eggs, 2 sides of hash browns and toast please." I say. "Are you sure that's what you want?" I close my eyes tightly, wishing I were anywhere else right now but here. I re-open my eyes and look at the woman across the counter from me. She looks to be in her mid 70's and has long gray-white hair pulled back into a hairnet and she's wearing glasses that are hanging on a chain around her neck.

"Oh god, it's you. Your smile's so fake just to let you know." God smiles at me with that old woman sweetness and says changing the subject "Are you sure Adam should be eating that?" "I don't want the lecture right now." I reply. God looks at me again and I sigh. "Why shouldn't he be eating this?" I ask. "Because his immune system can't handle food that heavy right now. Try yogurt or something like that." God suggests. I snort. "Okay, then you suggest something." I say. God looks at the yogurt sitting in the cooler. "Buy him that Joan."

I glare at her as I walk over to the cooler and take a yogurt out and put it on my tray. I look at her and ask sarcastically "Is this okay or should I get peach?" God shrugs. "It's your choose," she says. "Of course it is." I mutter under my breath. "You happy now?" I ask. "Yes. Go pay for your food Joan." God says handing me my plate of food. "This is ridiculous." I say. God gives me a wave and I slowly walk to the cashier. I shake my head and walk over to pay the cashier for our food and a cup of coffee for me.

"Hey Joan, could you grab a couple packs of salt for me?" Lily calls from the table. I walk over to the condiments counter and grab napkins, forks, some salt and a spoon for Adam. I walk over to the table and sit down. Lily reaches out her hand mid-chew and I give her the packs of salt.

I eat my food and I start to poke at my eggs, 5 minutes later. Realizing what I'm doing, I push my tray of food back from me. The eggs were cold by this time anyways. I take another sip of my luke warm coffee and I can barely swallow it. Cold coffee is **so **gross. I grab for my tray and stand up.

"Where you going Girardi?" Grace asks me. "I'm going to give Adam his breakfast." I reply, indicating to the Yoplait yogurt that I'm holding in my hand.

I say bye to everyone and head back to the waiting area and down the hallway to Adam's room. He has the back of the bed up half way and he's sitting up. "Hi." He says in his soft voice when he sees me. "Hi, I have food." I say as I cross the room to the bed and I sit down beside him. "Thanks." Adam says as he reaches for the yogurt container and the spoon. I watch him eat for a minute, and then I rise and walk to the chair by the door and grab the bag that I'd brought with me from home.

"What's that?" Adam asks, seeing the bag immediately. I bring it over to the bed and open it, showing him his sketchpad and a pen, our twin I-pods from our wedding and my laptop. "Cool." Adam says, returning to his yogurt. I flip over the I-pods to see which one is which. I reach over Adam and put his sketchpad, pen and I-pod on his bedside table. Adam finishes and puts the empty yogurt container on his bedside table.

Turning slightly towards me, Adam smiles sweetly at me. I smile back, and then quickly turn my head to the door to see Glynis and Friedman standing there. Friedman was holding his left hand and seeing me looking at him oddly he says "I hit it against the door frame." I hear Adam start to snicker beside me and Glynis looks at him, surprised.

"What?" Adam asks. "You seem to be in such a good mood, seeing what you've been through." Glynis replies. Adam grins at me. "Cha, well I've had some help."

Adam looks back at Glynis to see Friedman looking between the 2 of us very suggestively. "I see what's going on here. Joan's been giving Adam some sugar." he says. Because Adam and I can't reach him, Glynis smacks him over the head for us. "No! You can't do that!" Friedman says, irritated. Adam and I laugh at him.

"So besides the obvious, how are you both?" Glynis asks, sitting down in the chair beside Adam's chair. Friedman drags the chair by the door over and sits down beside Glynis. "We're doing pretty good. Work is going good for me, keeping busy. Iris came over to my office yesterday and we looked at the pictures that she'd taken at our last interview. They came out pretty good and she seems to really enjoy being my photographer." "Is she full time?" Glynis asks. "Yeah, she is. She has been since November."

"How about you Adam?" Glynis asks. " Iris and I will hopefully be getting our own wing at the gallery that we show our work at and we're both really looking forward to that. Besides that, I haven't been up to much. Just working mostly." Adam replies. "That's great Adam. When will you be getting the wing?" Glynis asks. "Hopefully by mid March. At the latest, early April." Adam replies.

"What have you 2 been up to?" I ask. "Working mostly. Not too exciting next to the 2 of you." Friedman says. "Friedman!" I say accusingly. Friedman quickly covers his head. "No hitting!" he says, defensively. Glynis looks over at him and rolls her eyes at her boyfriend. "What?" he asks. Glynis rolls her eyes at him again, and then looks back at Adam and I.

"Hey!" Luke says from the doorway. "Lukey G! What have you been up to dude? Friedman says, rising from his chair and going over to greet Luke. He gives him a very "manly" hug. Grace comes into the room behind him, eyeing her fiancée very oddly.

"Hi Grace." Glynis says, moving slightly towards her to give her a hug. "If you hug me Figliola, you will be in serious pain." Grace says, edging away from her. Glynis seems to have thought about the consequences of hugging Grace and she chooses not to hug her. 

"Feeling better Rove?" Grace asks Adam. "Cha, totally." Adam replies. Grace snorts slightly at his answer.

Grace sits down in Friedman's now empty chair. She looks over at Luke and Friedman who are by this time deep into "Science talk". She rolls her eyes, then looks back at Glynis, Adam and I.

"So." Glynis says trying to strike up a conversation. "What do you think your doing?" Grace asks her accusingly. "Oh, I'm sorry Grace. I forgot that you don't like interacting with other people." Glynis says. "Stop talking so importantly." Grace replies.

Adam and I just look back and forth at each other. I decide that this conversation thing should be attempted once again.

"This probably is an odd question, but do you ever worry that when Friedman's 80 that he'll be flirting with women that are like 20?" I ask. Glynis sighs, and then replies, "You know Joan and I worry about that every single day." "You're not worried now?" Grace asks as she raises her eyebrows. "Well, yeah I'm worried about that too." Glynis says. I laugh for a moment, and then stop because Glynis looks at me funny. "Anyways..." Glynis says...


	8. Chapter 7

- 7 -

Adam gets out of the hospital a few days later and I can't believe how grateful I am to be out of that place. He seems to be somewhat happy at home on his own, so I decide to go into work to make sure I'm not fired. I called in a couple days ago, but I don't think my boss, Lorelei was too happy about me missing work.

I walk up from the subway station and pull the collar of my jacket tighter around me. It's amazing how strong the wind can blow in New York in the winter.

I go inside of Seventeen and ride the elevator up to the 30th floor, which is where Lorelei's office is. I say hello to her secretary and go into her office.

"Hi Lorelei." I say, taking off my gloves. Lorelei's a woman with shoulder length wavy brown hair in her mid 30's. She has a pretty smile and when she's not mad at you, she uses it regularly. "Hi Joan. How's your husband?" Lorelei asks. "Much better. He's still taking antibiotics, but he's at home now, so I'm happy." I reply. Lorelei smiles at me. "Good. I'm glad. This may seem a little too direct, but have you gotten a chance to work on your Downtown article?" "Actually, yes I have. Iris brought in the photographs from the photo shoot on Friday morning and I was able to write a little bit over the weekend at the hospital. I'm almost finished with it." I say, replying. "That's good to hear. Just to let you know, the finalized version is due on my desk on Wednesday morning." Lorelei says. "Okay." I say. Lorelei smiles and I stand to walk to the door.

"Thank you Lorelei." I say. "Your welcome. I'm glad that you're back and that your husband's doing better." Lorelei says, with another smile. "Thank you." I say again. I then, turn and walk out the door.

I ride the elevator back down to the 22nd floor and walk towards my office. Tara sees me from her office and she comes out to greet me.

Tara gives me a quick hug, and then says happily "Joanie, you're back!" "Yeah, I'm back." I say. "Grace called me and said that Adam was coming back this morning. How is he?" "Good, he's good." I reply. "Good. How about you?" Tara asks. "I'm doing good. You have no idea how happy I am to be out of that place." Tara gives a faint smile. "Yeah, I bet. Personally, hospitals freak me out." I smile at her. "Yeah. I'm sorry Tar, but I've got to go home. I just wanted to talk to Lorelei. I'll see you tomorrow?" Tara nods then says "Sure Joan." I nod this time, then I turn and head back towards the elevator.

I put my gloves back on in the elevator and I ride it down to ground level. I pull my scarf tighter, feeling very cold. I walk towards the subway station and go down the stairs. My train is waiting at the station and I run to get on it. Sitting down in one of the seats by the door, I pull my coat even closer around me. I love New York so much, but I hate the cold. It's a sty trade off, but it's what I get if I want to live here.

The train gets to my stop about 15 minutes later and I get off. I go up to street level and cross the street. I take out my key and put it in the lock. I open the door and go inside. I greet the guard, and then go up in the elevator to the 4th floor and I walk down the hall to Adam's and my apartment. I insert my key and turn it.

"Hey." I say, closing the door behind me. "Hey." Adam says, not looking up from what he's doing. I glance over to see that he has a pad of paper and a pen out, his guitar is in his lap. He keeps leaning over the pad of paper to make notes.

I make a b-line towards the cabinet and take the jar of peanut butter out. Adam doesn't even have to look up to know what I'm doing. "You're going to get sick if you keep doing that." he says, finally looking up at me. I have a huge spoon of peanut butter in my hand. I take a small bite of it as I put the lid back on and put it back up in the cabinet. I walk over to him and sit down, looking at his notebook.

"What are you working on?" I ask, licking at my spoon. "A jingle for Nathan's latest ad." Adam replies. "Cool." I say. "You need help eating that?" Adam asks, looking at my spoon of peanut butter. "Sure." I reply, handing him my spoon. He takes it from me then glances up at me.

"Hold out your hand," Adam says, a mischievous look in his eyes. "What are you doing?" I ask, pretty sure of what he's about to do. "Just put your hand out," he says reaching for one of my hand. Adam spoons the peanut butter into my palm, and then he smiles at me, lust in his eyes. He takes my hand, brings it up to his mouth and he slowly licks up all of the peanut butter, his tongue continuing to tickle my palm long after it's gone. Every flick of his tongue sent waves of heat through me and soon I am too hot for anything to be funny. I take him by the chin and kiss him.

Adam opens his mouth and kisses me back. His tongue slips between my lips and touches mine. I pull away quickly and glance towards the window. Adam follows my gaze and stands up and walks to the window to close the blinds. He walks back to me, sits down and turns to face me.

We look each other up and down for a moment, and then Adam leans back into kiss me. He lowers me to the carpet-covered floor and he kisses me again.

His fingers are at the hem of my shirt and he slowly starts to inch it up. The bunched up material is at my neck and Adam pushes it up and over my head. I start to giggle for some reason and Adam looks down at me, desire in his eyes and he kisses me hungrily again. He reaches for the button on my jeans and frees it.

"You taste amazing." I hear Adam mumble. I pull his shirt over his head and he's kissing me in that way that I just can't help but kiss him back...


	9. Chapter 8

- 8 -

I'm not quite how we got there, but when I wake up, Adam and I are laying in our bed. I reach for the bedside clock and see that it's 6:32 pm. I pull myself up into a sitting position and yawn. I look over at Adam to see that he's still asleep.

I stand up and walk into the bathroom to take a shower. It's such a rare occurrence to take a shower on my own. It's probably been at least 3 or so weeks since I had one to myself. Not that I'm complaining, shower sex is great, but showers on my own are very much enjoyed.

I step out of the shower 25 minutes later, to find Adam in a bathrobe, watching me. "Psycho much?" I ask pulling my towel tighter. "Nah, not so much." Adam replies. "You want in?" I ask. He looks at me suspiciously. "You know, take a shower?" Adam is still looking at me funny. "What?" I ask, walking towards the walk-in closet. "I don't know." Adam says. I hear running water coming out of the facet a moment later, and then it transfers up to the showerhead.

I pull on a red fleece pullover and floral lounge pants. I walk back to the bathroom sink and I start to squeegee my hair.

"What do you feel like doing for the rest of the night?" Adam asks, from the shower. I think for a moment. "Movie and Magleno's pizza?" I suggest. "Sure, that sounds good. What movie?" Adam asks. "50 first dates?" I suggest again. Adam pokes his head around the shower curtain, water running down his face. "Cha, sounds good." I smile, because he looks so ridiculous. I shake my head and lean forward to kiss him. He kisses me back and I pull back so that the rug doesn't get any wetter then it already is. Adam looks down at the rug and laughs.

"I'll see you later." I say and I walk out to the bedroom. I put on the slippers that are under my nightstand.

I walk out to the living room, take 50 first dates off of the DVD rack and walk to the fridge. I take out the wine bottle and pour myself a glass. Walking back to the couch, I take a sip.

Adam walks out to the living room 15 minutes later. He leans down and kisses my neck, and then sits down beside me on the couch. His plaid lounge pants keep running against my legs and I change the position that I'm sitting in. I bring my legs up onto the couch and curl up beside Adam. He leans his head against mine for a moment, and then he lean down and give me a kiss. I kiss him back and Adam reaches for my hand and inter-twines our fingers. I lean in and kiss him again and Adam pulls away a moment later and rubs his lips together, savoring the taste of me.

"So, what kind of pizza?" Adam asks, as he moves slightly and stands up. "Hmm, I dunno. I sort of feel like something spicy." I reply. "Like pepperoni spicy or more?" Adam asks a moment later, as he returns to the couch with my re-filled wine glass and his own wine glass. I drop a quick thank you kiss on his lips before I reply "Yeah, but maybe even spicier." Adam shrugs an okay. "How about the special? Pepperoni, Italian sausage, olives, ham, green peppers and onions." I suggest. Adam thinks for a minute, before turning to look at me again. "Sure." he replies.

Adam reaches for the phone book that's under the table beside the couch, and then reaches for the phone and dials the number. The line connects a minute later and I hear Adam ask for the specials like he always does, even when we know what we want. I shake my head, take a sip of my wine, and then turn to look at my husband, smiling.

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There's a knock on our door an hour later and Adam rises from the couch and walks over and opens it. The delivery person hands Adam the pizza box, and then Adam hands the delivery person his money.

Adam closes the door a moment later and turns to face me. I pull the coffee table closer to the couch and he sets the box down. A moment later we sit down and Adam turns to look at me, the DVD remote in his hand.

"Ready?" he asks and I nod. Adam taking that as an answer, press the play button and the previews start. Adam clicks to the main menu and selects "play movie".

About 20 minutes into the movie, the food has been eaten and we've curled up on the couch. Adam's arm is around my shoulder and he pulls me closer towards him. Without a second thought, I move closer towards him. I can feel his hand softly stroking my upper arm and feeling very comforted by this, I lay my head on his shoulder.

We watch the rest of the movie in silence, at least between the two of us. Otherwise we're both laughing so hard!

"That movie's hilarious every time." Adam says, turning off the DVD player. "Yeah, especially in that scene where Adam Sandler's on his boat." I reply, chuckling. Adam laughs, remembering it. "Wouldn't it be nice if we were older and we wouldn't have to wait so long? You know it's going to make it that much better. We could say good night and stay together. Why? Why would you do this to me you sick bastard!" he sings, laughing so much that I can barely understand what he's saying. We're both laughing so hard again. "And then he realize what the CD means and he goes and sees Drew Barrymore and they kiss." I add. "Uh huh. Luckily, Drew Barrymore is sort of hot." he says. I raise my eyebrows and look at him. "What?" he asks and I just roll my eyes.

"What time is it?" I ask, with a yawn. Adam clicks the info button on the TV remote and replies "10:49."

I start to stand up and Adam grabs onto my shirt so I can't stand up. "Where you going?" he asks, pulling me back down into his lap. "I'm going to bed." I reply, with a giggle. "On your own?" I look up to see Adam looking at me, a slight look of lust in his eyes. "Yeah, on my own. You had sex once today, you ain't gettin' no more tonight!" I reply, my giggles continuing. Adam looks at me and gives me his "puppy eyes" and I roll my eyes at him. I drop a quick kiss on his mouth, and then try to stand up. Adam once again, stops me.

"What?" I whine as Adam pulls me back into his lap again. "You're not going anywhere Mrs. Rove." he says, grinning as he leans into kiss me. I try to pull away, but Adam won't let me. I giggle into his mouth as I kiss him. Adam kisses me back and he lets me go as he gets in one final kiss. I give him one last peck, and then I rise from the couch and walk into the bedroom.

Adam joins me 10 minutes later and we get into bed. The lights are turned off and I snuggle next to Adam. He wraps his arms around my waist and I sigh. He asks what and I reply "Long day. I'm so happy to be home at last." I can tell that there's a smile on Adam's lips and he reaches down and sniffs at my pillow. "These sheets smell right." he says as he moves back to his own pillow. "Really?" I say as I prop myself up on one elbow. "Really." Adam says and I can tell that he's smiling.

I snuggle up closer to him and I reach for his lips and kiss him. Adam kisses me back and he tightens his grip on my waist. My eyelids feel heavy and I close them for a moment and I am close enough to Adam that when he exhales, his breath flutters my hair. I open my eyes for a moment and I smile when I see that he's fallen asleep. I close them again and I start to lose reality...


	10. Chapter 9

- 9 -

"So, how was the first night home?" Tara asks me, as she follows me down the hall from the coffee room a couple mornings later. I glance at her and grin. "It was good." Tara looks at me and raises her eyebrows. "It was just good?" She asks. I smile, and then say, "Okay, maybe it was better then good." Tara raises her eyebrows again. "Okay fine. It was... amazing." I say. "Sex?" Tara asks. I look over at her and laugh. "Yeah and pizza and a movie. What do you want from me?" Tara finally laughs. "That. That's what I wanted." I roll my eyes at her and we walk into my office.

"So, not trying to change the subject 'cause believe me, I could talk about sex for hours, but what did Adam say was the reason for not telling you he was sick?" Tara asks, sitting down. My smile fades and I close my eyes. "What?" Tara asks. I open my eyes to see that she's looking at me, a slightly concerned look on her face. "I started to ask him at the hospital, and he told me that he didn't want to talk about it when we where there and I could ask him when we got home." Tara licks her lips, and then says, "Forget I asked. I don't want for you to get mad at Adam." I shake my head and say, "No, I need to know." "Why?" "Because, I just need to. Anger will build up because of it and after a while, I'll just blow up at him and I don't want to do that. I hate being mad at him, so I need to know now." I say, finishing. Tara just looks at me and she nods.

"How's your article going?" Tara asks, obviously trying to quickly change the subject. "Good. I turned it into Lorelei this morning when I got here." I reply. "Cool. How'd it turn out?" Tara asks. I shrug and say "I liked it. I spent the day with them when I wrote the article and I just got to see them being themselves. Iris and I went back to see them a couple days later and that's when she took the pictures of them. The 5 of them are so amazing and funny and everything. I'd gladly do an article on them again." I reply.

Tara smiles, and then turns and walks to the door and goes into her own office. I sit there at my desk, not doing anything because I can't decide if I should call Adam and yell at him, or if I should wait until I get home. I decide to wait until I get home. I'll be upset all day if I call now and I know myself well enough to realize that I know this for a fact. So, I just return to my computer and try to get him out of my head. And guess what? I suck at it!

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The ride home it feels so strange. I've been on my own for a couple days now and I hate every second of it. I'm noticing how cold it really is in the train and I hate the feeling of not having Adam's arms around me keeping me warm. How did I stay warm a year and a half ago? I didn't dress any warmer then I do now. I miss Adam. I miss our daily rhythm.

I almost miss my stop because I'm so deep in thought. I shake my head and stand and exit the train. I walk across the street and into our apartment building. I'm at our door a couple minutes later and I take out my key and open the door.

Adam's sitting on the couch, sock-covered feet on the coffee table, his sketchpad in his pad and the lead tip of a pencil in his mouth. He's biting down on the leaded point of the pencil, which is what he does when he gets into a creative stump.

He seems to have heard me come in, because he glances over at the door and his eyes light up when they land on me. "Jane, your home." He puts his sketchpad down on the coffee table and stands up and walks over to me. He leans in to kiss me and I hesitate to kiss him back for a moment, but then I decide to do so. He must have felt something odd in my kiss, because he pulls back and looks up at me.

"Something wrong Jane?" his eyes are filled with concerned as he looks into mine. "I want to know." I simply say as I pull off my suede jacket and give him a stern look. "You want to know what?" Adam asks, that familiar confused sound in his voice. "I want to know why you didn't tell me." I say. Adam squeezes his eyes closed, and then takes a deep breath and looks at me. "Jane..." he starts to say, but I cut him off mid-sentence. "Don't even try. I need to know Adam." I say, crossing my arms.

Adam puts his arms over his head for a moment, and then pulls them down and looks at me. "Well?" I say, trying to drag it out of him. Adam licks his lips and then says "I didn't want you to worry." I crinkle up my forehead and ask "What?" "I didn't want you to worry." Adam says again. "Why didn't you want me to worry?" I ask, starting to get frustrated with him. "You were looking forward to that night and I didn't want you to worry about me. You were already kind of wound up and I didn't want to make it worse." Adam replies, finally giving me something that sounds like an answer. "That's bull. That's complete and total bullst." I say, pulling my arms tighter around myself.

Adam looks at me as if I've just slapped him and after a moment he softly says "It's not bull." "Then just tell me the truth." I say feeling that I might start to cry. "I had felt something a few days before that and I thought I was just getting a mild version of your cold and then it didn't feel like that. It seemed that it had gone away, so I didn't say anything. Now looking back, I guess that it wasn't going away." Adam says and it looks like he's about to cry. "You should have told me. If you had, I could have gotten you help before it came to that. You really scared me that night." I say as a tear finally dislodges itself and falls from my eyes. "I know Jane and I'm sorry for it. You have no idea have sorry I am for that." Adam says, a tear falling from his eye as well. "I can't lose you. After last September, I can't stand the thought of it." I say, tears free falling now. "Me either." Adam says, almost mumbling.

We're just standing and looking at each other crying now and neither one of us sees to know what to do. Adam sees to have decided as he pulls me towards him and tightly wraps his arms around me. My tears start to subside as Adam starts to run his fingers through my hair. I can tell he's trying so hard to comfort us both. His body's still shaking as tears keep coming out and trying to comfort him, I pull him even tighter. Pulling away a moment later, Adam reaches for my face and starts to dry the tears on my cheeks with his thumbs.

For some reason I start to smile and this makes Adam smile. A moment later my smile turns into a soft laugh. I reach for Adam and I kiss his mouth and Adam happily kisses me back several times before giving me a closing peck. We're both still sniffling, but now it's blending in with our smiles.


	11. Chapter 10

-10 -

"So what do you want to do today?" Adam asks, sitting down at the table across from me the next morning. "I dunno. I don't have work today, so I dunno. What are you doing?" I ask, poking at my eggs and potatoes. "I haven't been in the studio for a while, so I feel that I should go in for a while. I'll leave early so we can spend the rest of the day together, How's that?" Adam says, tearing the crust off of his toast. "I like the sound of it a lot." I reply pouring another spoonful of sugar into my coffee and this earns a snicker from Adam. "What?" I ask taking a sip, and then deciding that it's still not sweet enough, I add another spoonful. "You are going to be so hyper after that cup." Adam says taking a sip of his black cup. "You find it funny that I put so much sugar in mine and I find it funny that you drink yours black." Adam wrinkles up his forehead and says, "How's that funny yo?" I raise my eyebrows and I take another sip of my coffee, finally satisfied with the taste of it.

"I've got to get going. I'll be back like 2-3 this afternoon?" Adam says standing up. "I like 2 better." I say, grinning. "Cha I bet you do." Adam says grinning back as he leans down to kiss me. I kiss him back, and then kiss him again and again until he finally pulls away. I pull him back towards me and kiss him a couple more times. Adam gives me one last kiss, and then he pulls away. "Jane, I've got to go." Adam says as he kisses me one last kiss. With a sigh, I kiss him back and he walks towards the door. "Bye." he says as his head disappears from my sight and I hear the door latch behind him.

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Around 2:00 I hear a key in the door and looking up, I see Adam closing the door behind him. He looks over at me and smiles. "Hey baby." he says as he kicks off his shoes by the door. "Hey." I say, saving the Microsoft works project that I'd just been working on. I stand up and walk over to him. Grinning, I kiss him on the mouth. He kisses me back and I walk back over to the couch and move my laptop to the coffee table. "Juicy." He says and I ask what he's talking about. "Your sweatpants." He replies pointing at them. I look down and sigh because my back of my black sweatpants does indeed say "Juicy". "Yeah, well..." I say, not being able to think of anything else to say. "It is Juicy." Adam comments with a laugh and I just roll my eyes.

"So, what do you want to do?" I ask, as Adam sits down beside me. Adam shrugs and he gets this glint in his eyes. I cock my head to the side and knowing exactly what he's talking about, I roll my eyes. "Anything but that. You just had it a couple days ago, so tell your little friend in your pants to chill." I say curling my body up onto the couch. " Cha! Your just mean, you know that Jane, right?" Adam says. I look over at him and he's trying to use his "puppy eyes" to make me feel guilty. Chuckling I say, "Yes, I know." Adam shrugs my comment off and says "Well, then what do you want to do?" "I don't know." I say, returning to my laptop.

"I'm bored Jane. Suggest something." Adam says, leaning back into the couch cushions. I glance at him and he's smiling at me. I let out a breath and just keeping looking at him. "What?" he asks, his smile widening. "You." I reply and put my computer back on the table.

I lift my hips so that I am sitting in Adam's lap and his mouth is now hanging open and he's just staring at me. I put my hands on the side of his face and press my mouth against his and Adam seems rather surprised by this, because it takes him a moment to kiss me back. I continue to kiss him and Adam puts his hands on my hipbone. He opens his mouth as he kisses me back and I navigate myself inside to flirt with his tongue.

Adam lowers me down onto the couch cushions and lets his fingers ride along the skin between the top of my sweatpants and my belly button. His fingers start to lift the waistband of my sweatpants and I quickly slap at his hand.

Adam pulls away quickly and begins to nurse his wounded hand. I sit up and knowing exactly what he's about to say I say "I told you no sex. It's your own fault sweetie." Adam just looks at me and puts his hand in mine and rolling my eyes I check for "injuries". "I think you'll live Rove." I say as I give him his hand back.

Sighing, I bring my laptop back up onto my lap. I'm use to him acting like this when he thinks he's "injured". Then again, I didn't marry an athlete or a macho man or anything like that. I married a sensitive artist who's no big muscle about stuff. I shake my head as Adam finally let his hand drop from his grip and leans back into the couch cushions. He's not approaching me right now and I don't really blame him for it.

"Okay, seeing that's an obvious no, what do you want to do instead?" Adam asks after a moment. I look back over at him again. "Movie?" I suggest. Adam doesn't respond, he just shrugs. "You know you suck at this, right?" I say and Adam just shrugs again.

Adam doesn't wait for me to suggest something, so he stands up and takes "Tommy Boy" off of the DVD rack. He opens the DVD player and puts it in.

Walking back to the couch, he smiles sweetly at me because he knows that only I love this movie as much as he does. He takes my laptop off of my lap and puts it on the coffee table. I just gaze at him wordlessly as he puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls my torso towards him. He looks at me and starts to laugh at my expression.

"What?" He asks, a smile at his lips. "You. You're just amazing. How do you know me so well?" I ask, as I curl up next to him and rest my head on his shoulder. Adam shrugs and says, "I just do Jane."

A smile is still at his lips and his love for me is shining through so brightly right now and I can't help but keep smiling. Maybe I'm a stupid lovesick idiot, but I don't care. Adam makes me so stupidly happy, that I just don't know what to do with myself.

We continue to sit there on the couch long after the movie is over, enjoying each other's company, the warmth of each other's body and the comfort of it. I don't know quite when I fell asleep in his arms, but there's no safer place in the world to do so, then in Adam's arms.

My shelter and safety from the storm, my comfort and the one place I know that my heart can call home.

The End


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